What Checo’s Extension With Red Bull Means For The Team And The F1 Grid?
The big news of Tuesday 3rd June is, of course, that Sergio Perez has signed a two-year contract extension with Red Bull, meaning he is locked in with the team until the end of the 2026 season.
The team have chosen to stick with what they know. The Mexican driver joined in 2021 and seems to have been doing exactly what the team wants him to do: playing second fiddle to Verstappen, backing him up and ensuring Red Bull were strong in the Championship standings.
Many on social media have been criticizing his performances in races recently, so one might consider looking at the numbers.
RACE QUALI RESULT
Bahrain 5 2
S. Arabia 3 2
Australia 3 5
Japan 4 2
China 2 3
Miami 4 4
Imola 11 8
Monaco 18 DNF (first-lap crash)
source: https://x.com/SChecoPerez
In the first five races of the season, his performances were fairly impressive achieving four podiums. But since then, his form has declined. He has gained fewer points and, in this respect, has not been fulfilling his role in the team so well. His P18 Monaco qualifying was shocking, as it placed him fourth of the four Red Bull family drivers on the grid – this is surely not the result the senior team expects of its second driver.
What it does suggest is that Perez and Verstappen have some harmonious relationship that just works for the team. And that perhaps they foresee better results for the rest of the season for the Mexican driver. Red Bull remain in the lead of the constructors’ championship for now, although the gap is much smaller at just 24 points.
Looking at these statistics alone, perhaps the signing does not seem so outrageous. However, it becomes slightly more disillusioning when considering the other options the team have for potential signings.
The in-form Carlos Sainz sits one point ahead Perez in the standings currently, despite missing a race due to appendicitis. His win at Australia was impressive, but Horner, Marko, and the Red Bull execs did not take the conversations beyond their initial stages. For the Spaniard, this constitutes another door closed in his potential future seats. It seems a seat in a front-running team is a non-starter for him at this point, unless he manages to grab the Mercedes seat left by Lewis Hamilton though they seem to be uninterested (and that is if you still consider Mercedes more than a mid-fielder).
Checo’s signing also means that Red Bull continues to neglect to promote their younger talents. In particular, this refers to Yuki Tsunoda. He has had a rather remarkable start to the 2024 season. He has outqualified his teammate Ricciardo in six races so far and has shown great progress in his maturity and race craft since the start of his F1 career. The fact that he has been overlooked for this promotion by the team is strange, but more concerning still is, to me, the fact that he has been consistently overlooked on social media and in general discourse too.
Whilst speculating about who would take the second seat, the conversation seemed to always focus on Perez, Ricciardo, and Sainz. I recall very few times that I saw Tsunoda’s name mentioned in the core of the post. This is disappointing and highlights what I think is an unfortunate failure within the F1 community to truly appreciate his races so far this season. To be consistently outperforming his far more experienced teammate so consistently in what is an unremarkable car is impressive and that ought to be recognised more widely.
The knock-on of this is then that Liam Lawson remains without a seat for the 2025 season.
Having proven himself in his tenure a temporary replacement during Ricciardo’s injury last year, it seemed to many that he would soon have a contract heading his way. Helmut Marko seemed to all but guarantee it for next season, but it remains unclear where exactly he would fit in. The avenue for this would be Tsunoda taking a contract elsewhere, perhaps at Alpine reuniting with his ex-teammate Pierre Gasly. Visa CashApp RB’s line-up is yet to be confirmed but their current line-up is rumoured to be likely to remain.
Unless Perez firmly plants himself on the front row consistently, there will inevitably remain debates about whether he is worthy of the seat. So long as he remains being outperformed by drivers within the Red Bull family in worse cars or with less experience, Checo faces an almost impossible task in proving himself as a worthy candidate for the seat. His signing seemed, in many respects, inevitable. Those who did not anticipate it were relying more on their hopes than on reason. Given the team’s successful run so far, it would seem bizarre to change the formula.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
While many would (understandably) want to see a greater mix up among the driver pairings for next year, Red Bull has always realistically been locked in. Perhaps Checo is merely suffering a blip in his performance, perhaps his performance is on a downward trajectory and will continue thus. Either way, the contract is signed. Red Bull does, of course, have a history of mid-season driver swaps so the document will likely have some cleverly crafted escape clause so that the team can renege on the agreement if this poorer form continues.
For now though, we have what remains an interesting silly season ahead. Ten seats (11 if you count the pretty inevitable Lance Stroll Aston seat) are yet to be confirmed.
